Thursday, October 11, 2012

It's a question that we get asked frequently. New businesses start up and these days the very first thing you do is register a domain name. Probably before you've even checked to see if the company name is available.

Over the last couple of years I have seen more and more domain names selling for extraordinary prices.
To give you an idea:

.co.za domain name prices:

finance.co.za - R400 000+

creditreports.co.za - R50 000+

searchengineoptimisation.co.za - R5000+

.com domain name prices:

sex.com - $13 000 000

porn.com - $9 500 000

beer.com - $7 000 000

So why is it that these domain name prices are so high and what is it that makes the domain costs super pricey. Well in the good old days, if you owned the exact search term i.e. finance you eventually with a little bit of SEO and some good solid content on your site would rank 1st for the term "Finance".

It also used to be the case the alot of people, before the introduction of Google used to type exact match terms into their web browers i.e. www.finance.co.za. However with the introduction of Google this became irrelevant and people started using search engines to find what they were looking for.

So companies were paying and still are paying for the "search term" rankings.On the 28th of September 2012 Google released the newest Penguin update. Exact Match Domain update which dropped the exact match domains that did not have enough domain authority or Google authority to rank.

Monday, October 8, 2012

South Africans need to catch on and quickly. The corporates are moving up the online marketing chain and are realising that without online marketing, they're nowhere. Apart from that, more and more international companies are riding the wave of a lack of understanding and funding being put into online marketing by South African businesses.So why is it essential that South African companies invest in SEO:SEO is an investment that no business can ignore. If
you use search engine optimization correctly, you can make sure that your
business gets high rankings on search engines. This attracts new clients, new business and possibly new potential revenue streams for your company.1: SEO offers access to millions of randsPeople use the internet to find business and services.

2: SEO helps you to get new customers70% of people who buy products in a shop do their research online before they do. Search engine optimization helps you to get these customers.

5: SEO is well pricedSEO The good thing about an SEO campaign is that it doesn't stop as
soon as you stop paying (AdWords). An SEO campaign that uses best practices will offer lasting results that lead
to a steady flow of new customers to your website.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

"Links, links, links. It’s pretty much at the top of any SEOs “must discuss” list of topics. For a long time, the prevailing thinking was links were the golden egg. They were what you needed to turn the tide and boost your rankings. And that was true.

Today, though, it might pay to broaden your thinking.

I am not saying links are dead or links have no value – let’s get that straight up front.

What I am saying, however, is that it can pay to keep the big picture in view and not get mired too deeply in the weeds. I mean, just watching comments on popular search industry sites from those who work in the industry is enough to convince anyone that link building and managing link campaigns is very much the current “tactic du jour”. But what if that time were better spent?

It’s easy to get fixated one a single tactic, hoping if you double down on that one area it’ll pay dividends. Easier for you, easier on the budget (in some cases) and easier to track results. But it’s a single signal to the engines. Links. Just a single signal. So what are you doing to work with the other signals?

Are you putting equal time into the social side of the equation? Is your social program ramping up to engage people in a meaningful way? Or is it on autopilot still pumping out self-serving links to only your own products and services?

Is the editorial side of your house producing the killer content you need them to? Do they seek new ways to engage readers through not just well written content, but with content that answers questions before they’re asked?

Are your content management system and your page templates sorted out from a technical SEO standpoint? Still got multiple <H1> tags on the page? Still leaving <ALT> tags empty? Missing a <meta description>?

The point here is to not get caught up in one single aspect of the complex world of SEO. Links, while still holding value, have evolved as signals over time. If we see a sudden appearance of obviously spammy links pointed at your site, and your site is otherwise showing a history of trustworthiness, we’re most likely going to just ignore those links. Still, while this can cover the obvious instances, tools like the Disavow Links feature in Bing Webmaster Tools enables you to flag inbound links you don’t like.

To be clear, again, this isn’t a post stating links are dying, or you should ignore them, but it is a post saying watch how much time you invest in them. By and large, building links the right way is beyond your control. While it’s smart to allocate some time to watching this signal via the tools and data available today, don’t place all of your eggs in one basket.

This isn’t foreshadowing anything either, but what if links ceased to be a useful signal to the engines. What would you focus on then?

So many times across the industry you hear conversations about shortcuts. How can I build links quickly? I need more followers on Twitter, quickly. Where can I get free content?

If all the time that was spent seeking shortcuts was invested into producing quality, engaging content, more websites would find success. The main point behind today’s post is to remind you to look around; watch what you invest in and make sure you’re not wasting time seeking shortcuts when the answer to success is right in front of you.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Creating landing pages allows you to more effectively achieve your goal of converting a
higher percentage of your visitors into leads. This is because landing pages make the process of receiving an offer much simpler for your visitors, since they don’t have to navigate your website to find the page they’re looking for.

Sending your visitors to landing pages also eliminates any confusion about what they must do to receive your offer, which keeps them from getting frustrated about not finding the form, or deciding that it’s not worth their time to figure out how to go about the process.

Monday, July 9, 2012

When
you see a great picture – you look at it – eye candy for all of us.

So
some simple ways to get the best out of using photos for your social media and
how it can help your business are quite simply done by a few easy steps.

Firstly
decide what you want out of using photos in your strategy – showing to folks
talking in front of a screen depicts work.

Then
make sure who the target market is for your photos, who your audience is
because you want them to Engage on social media, take more photos and share
with you and the But Your PRODUCTS.

Make
sure you create a very alluring theme or hook with your photos ie. My photos
show someone littering with a McDonalds packet and my hook is our products are
so fresh they do not need wasteful packaging!..get the idea.

Now
you need to create a story around your picture – there is power in words ask
any copywriter.

Even
if you are a small business, develop and promote your brand always – remember
you want Traffic so why not use a Trafficfundi!!!!

Prospect, prospect and prospect and
invite all your colleagues, friends, enemies to share there photos and stoiries
with yours – spread the word be like butter! Use blog, websites and social
sharing all te time and promote.

Lastly measure your results there are many
tools that will tell you what you are working towards is working or not

Friday, July 6, 2012

All
writers are afraid of the dreaded “P” word – so what am I referring to here? We
are referring to nothing less than the dreaded word plagiarism.

Plagiarism
is something that we, as copy writers, are often tempted to do – after all copying
someone else’s copy is dead easy and no-one will find out! Or will they? Don’t kid yourself. The writing police will
soon be onto your game, and you will be caught out super-quick.

But
why bother copying someone else’s ideas when your very own could be as good if
not better? Have you ever read an article either online or somewhere else where
you think to yourself “gee that is so great”? Well, let’s face facts - we are all individuals and who says that what
one has to say, depart or share is not as good if not as interesting as the
next person?

Flowery
language is one entity, but getting down and dirty and saying what you think,
what you feel and what you know could be far better than the person who can write
beautifully and descriptively, yet there is little depth to what they have to
say?

A
pretty girl is fantastic, and if she dresses wonderfully it is even nicer, but
if she is a completely vacuous individual and has absolutely nothing at all to
say that is deep, interesting or a little funny – well, let’s face it, the
admiration stops right there.

Writing
copy is identical to the pretty girl. Perhaps the pretty stuff looks good from
a distance, but when the reader digs a little deeper, the pretty site and
flowery language lacks both interest and depth!

Be
sincere and above all else be honest and original. You don’t need to copy
anyone else’s stuff to get YOUR own individual point across. Yes there will always be techno stuff that we
need to adhere to when writing technical copy. I mean – could you imagine
getting the bits wrong when marketing TV’s, cameras or a line of industrial
parts? It is then really important to ensure you stick to the product
descriptions to a “T”.

Plagiarism
is tempting, but hardly worth the effort. After all there is nothing quite as
rewarding as writing copy that is original and interesting.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

In
layman’s terms, search engine optimization (SEO) is the process by which
websites rank in the search engines when users type in a certain keyword. It
takes different SEO strategies for “crawlers” to catalog and index your site;
and usually, these strategies include quality content and link building. But,
this is about to change with the introduction of the latest strategy that has
been going on around in the SEO world.

These new innovative SEO
strategies combine creative marketing and advertising with SEO and online
branding. This approach is a combination of the traditional SEO strategies
(i.e. On-site SEO and link building) and modern tactics to grow a company’s online
presence. Link building and on-site techniques are not enough anymore to have
your site on top of the ranks anymore. By adding these latest trends on the
latest search landscape; local SEO, press releases and online reputation
management, your brand is in good position as far as Rankings are concerned.

Google + Local SEO

With the merging of these two services, Google
is putting an emphasis of Search importance in to local and social.
Meaning, if you are a local business, people should be familiar about your
venture and must have experience something about your offline efforts. This
will slam businesses who are trying to manipulate search by having different websites that are not real
businesses and built for sear crawlers only.

Google Plus combined with local listings allow businesses get prime
exposure on SERPs. These tools also allow users to review and rate services of
local businesses around their area to reward companies who are providing best
services and slam businesses who are doing poor in servicing their customers.

Online
Public Relations

Online public relations
means more options for the company which may include online charitable
competitions to finding the right material for a press article. This is very
vital because it adds creative elements to link building techniques as well as
generating good press positioning for the company or website. A good example is
creating an online invitation for a fun run whilst promoting a sports-related
website or other charitable efforts that a company have.

If you give back to your
community or support good causes, good search Karma is on your way. People will
talk about your business and will generate more clients for you.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

When it comes to advertising on Google,
choosing the right keywords is one of the most important parts of your online
strategy. Whether you are investing in SEO to rank naturally, or using Google
Adwords, it is crucial that you target keywords that are going to generate the
most business. There is no point getting to the top of Google for keywords that
only deliver clicks, and no sales. Should you be No.1 for ‘budget accommodation’
or ‘cheap hotels’?

The key to a successful Google strategy is
to find all the possible keywords that people may use to search for your
products or services. Many online marketers just choose the golden keywords,
such as ‘cheap hotels’, and stop there. While these may be the keywords that
get the most traffic, they are also the most competitive and therefore the most
expensive too.

Instead of spending all money on the
obvious keywords, spend some time researching all the different variations of
words. This can identify some much cheaper and much more valuable
opportunities. Often they will cost less and deliver a much better return on
your investment. There are lots of tools available to help find these different
search terms and although it can take a lot of time to find them, it’s well
worth it in the long run.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Social Media, Digital Marketing: Just what you need
So, you not sure what all these boggling terms mean but everyone around you is constantly talking about how Digital Marketing and Social Media helped take their businesses to better places. In our world things are constantly changing and it’s hard to keep up with what’s going on, so let’s catch up!

Twitter is the most recent buzz; it’s used by everyone, including celebs, companies and regular people. Twitter allows you to follow people and get followed, thus allowing you to “Tweet” about your company news, sales and basic information. Tweets are 160 characters long, so you don’t have to type out anything long.

One of the greatest things about Twitter is that it allows you to reach a larger audience and this helps with brand popularity amongst other things. Brand popularity means a greater Return of Investment for your company as more people know that you are out there. The best thing about Twitter and other Social Media sites is that it’s FREE.

A great idea, is to have competitions and give away goodies, people love anything that’s free. Digital competitions are very successful and play a great part in promoting who you are and what our products are about.
I absolutely love Social Media sites becomes you can connect to anyone, anywhere at any time. It’s advertising at a click of a mouse. People can also get in touch with you if they have any queries about what you do; this right here creates moral and customer relations.

A key of any business is having a good relationship with your customers. Once your customers are happy your business is a step closer to being successful.
To conclude this, Social Media and Digital Marketing are the newest form of marketing. It is very successful and really could help almost any company improve.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Utilizing proper title and description
tags is one of SEO’s best practices. This will help websites obtain enough traffic
and online presence at the same time.

If your page title failed to attract online
users, you will not be able to disseminate what you have in your site, may it
be services or products. This will, primarily, leads to a lower web traffic.

As we all know web traffic is very
important. It is the amount of data sent and received by visitors that helps
sites rank in search engines. This is determined by the number of visitors and
the number of pages they visit. So therefore we should not lose even a single
online user because this will add up to the search volume that we are
targeting.

One of the main problems that cause
sites’ ranking to fail is the ineffectiveness of site pages’ titles and
descriptions. Here is a list of problems that we commonly encounter when we
create title and description tags.

Title and description do not hit the right keywords

·Remember, title tags and the
meta descriptions should include keywords relevant to the content of the web
page.

Title and description are
not unique and do not compliment the site itself

·Each page should have a unique
title and description that will attract clicks.

·The description should have a
high quality set of sentences that will best describe the page. As I mentioned,
these should include the assigned keywords to make it more relevant with the site.

The titles and descriptions are too long, exceeding
the maximum ideal number of characters

·Ideally, search engines allow
you to use 60 characters for the title tags while 160 characters for the
descriptions.

The words do not catch the searcher’s attention

·Make title tags appealing to
the searcher!

·Good keywords alone may not be
sufficient, you want to get the reader’s attention so they will click on your
site using a call-to-action.

The title tag and description tag are so general that
they do not specify anymore what the page is all about

·Make sure that your title and
description sentences are related to the page’s content.

·Make sure what you’re trying to
tell to the searchers are the information that they are looking for.

Using these guidelines will surely help
boost your site’s ranking. Remember, unique and high quality title tags and
description tags can be very effective. It helps a page to get more traffic and
higher visibility opportunity to search engines. Keep in mind that traffic and
search engine visibility could lead to more sales and profit which is very
complimentary with your business goals.

So let’s not take for granted these small parts
of our websites. These two might be less of a problem but if these are done
correctly, you can be assured of your site’s success. Good luck folks!

A special thanks to Marc Garcia from Trafficfundi Philippines for this article.

Monday, June 25, 2012

It
is no secret that we all would love everyone to be drawn to a particular
website like bees to a honey pot – but there is a lot more to writing
interesting and different copy than meets the eye.

First
and foremost – you need an eye-popping headline where visitors to your site
would not be able to tear their faces away from the intrigue and fascination
not only from the staggering headline, but also from the actual copy.

Don’t
waffle, don’t be boring and yes – don’t say stuff you know nothing about – so
the real and true key is to do your research thoroughly. There is enough on the
web and enough in magazines and enough in newspapers to find stuff to write
about – and if you are REALLY stuck – go to the library which is a font of
information.

When
you read books (this helps in general even if you don’t ever write copy – just
makes one more interesting and a whole lot more intelligent) then keep a little
book with a pen and if something witty or interesting or really well-written
pops up – jot it down in your little (could be black) book.

Always
remember that copy when written has to be sincere, honest and straight from the
heart. If you are in a crummy mood and squeezing out copy, then the public will
soon cotton on that you are faking it – oh yes! NEVER underestimate your
audience, as they are a lot smarter than you realize. You know what it is like
– when you are speaking to someone on the phone and they are reading something on
the other side and not really paying attention, you know for sure that they are
listening with half an ear. Copy is the same – if you are writing with half a
heart and half a soul – everyone is going to know – trust me.

Naturally
all copy is not going to grab you. There are those sites that you have to squeeze
out ideas and fabulous stuff – I mean how excited can one get over mechanical
stuff – not the motor kind but the factory kind, so it is your duty to MAKE it
interesting – make it so interesting that customers will be queuing up to buy
that product. Perhaps you are not all that excited about it but the other guy
might be dying to add it to his collection of gee-gaws.

Never
presume you know what it is that tickles the buyer or customer pink! It is always
your duty as copy writer to write with a sincere heart and bright smile.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Having been brought up in a very Catholic / Roman Catholic surrounding being Italian and all I initially found it very difficult to understand how other cultures / religions could fit into society. In fact I never understood how people (non Italians) could do things other than:

Watch the Pope give sermons at the Vatican

Support Ferrari

Eat Pasta

As an Italian catholic boy that's what I was lead to believe was the essence of living.

As i started growing up I started becoming interested in more and more of life's GREAT cultures and religions and started realising that there was more to life then being Italian... This brings me to my story for the day, "What Google can learn from Buddhism". To be more specific what Google and their linking algorithm's can learn from the Buddhist way of life...

The Yin and Yang of Love

The Way of Love and Affection

(This is an extract from Humanistic Buddhism, a Blueprint for Life)

"In terms of marriage, the marriage of man and woman is the elevation, perfection, and unity of love. However, love is not a one-way street; love means that people should try to understand one another and to take the love they feel for a person and broaden it to include all sentient beings..." furthermore it states, "Love is reciprocal. True love means helping and blessing the beloved. Love is not owning, but rather offering. Small love means loving that which is related to oneself; great love means loving that which is related to others. Love others as thyself; lead thyself by following others".

Back when SEO was still all about on page optimisation and sharing links with other people, Google relied heavily on something called "Reciprocal link building". Things changed, and over time Google realised that people were using this method of linking to boost their rankings. Quite easily. The method people used was to build a relationship with another website owner. Tell them they loved their site added a link to their website and asked the website owner if they would return the favour.

This is a mutual agreement and something I would refer to as link love. I love your site, you love my site, let's link up.

Google thought better of this and decided that this was way too easy for people to cheat the system and then told everyone that reciprocal links no longer worked. They were crap and that everyone had to now go an get one way links if they wanted to rank well.

The problem with one way links

With this great update that Google brought upon the SEO world along with it came SPAM. Web spam of a form that not even Google predicted would happen.

Massive link networks started popping up

Social media sites were spammed into oblivion to the point that some of the BIG social media, bookmarking sites are only used for link spam these days

PR sites were spammed beyond belief, some of the PR sites i worked with were recieving on average 2000 PR articles an hour (for links)

Big corporates started realising that their business models could change and began selling links on their sites for REDICULOUS amounts (Ask news24.com what is costs for a banner on the home page). In fact better yet, ask Forbes.com what it costs for a link in the footer of their site.

Small SEO companies offering link building services popped up quicker than Jamie Oliver could could a plate a pasta.

Every company on the WEB started hiring link building companies to buy 1 way links

This lead to such a massive increase in web SPAM, rubbish sites ranking for irrelevant terms, and worst of all a REALLY REALLY bad user experience on Google.

Ultimately this lead to the Google PANDA & PENGUIN updates! This I believe all could have been prevented with SOME RECIPROCAL LOVE!

Conclusion

Google, read this, read the passage that the Buddhists so brilliant put forward. Love is reciprocal, love is not a one way street. As a webmaster of many many sites, we ALL know that irrelevant links to irrelevant sites is bad not only for SEO but for user experience. Myself as a webmaster would never link to someones sites if it wasn't relevant to my readers and my viewers.

If someone links to me and I link back to him, that's reciprocal love and a mutual agreement that says, "Your site is great man, thank you for linking to me". That is good for EVERYONE.

Yes, filter out the SPAM. Yes filter out the irrelevant content. Yes drop all the crappy sites out there.
BUT, bring back reciprocal link love with a more advanced algorithm, you have all those engineers, maybe you should look at hiring some monks...

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

So in a very exciting move it looks like Adobe has decided to hit the CLOUD. Cloud based computing has recently taken the world by storm and it appears as though more and more businesses are starting to move not only their internal it infrastructures onto the cloud but businesses are moving entire product solutions and offering onto the cloud.

The $75 per month Creative Cloud offering (or $50 per month with an annual membership), serves up all the CS6 applications as well as Adobe Muse and Edge Preview, two new HTML5 products.

Originally introduced last year the subscription service not only lets you download and install the Adobe desktop applications to your PC, but it also includes connectivity to Adobe Touch apps and provides 20GB of cloud-based storage so you can access your files from any web browser, and view, synchronize, and share your files across multiple computing devices (e.g., tablet and desktop PCs).

Existing users of Adobe suite products such as CS3, CS4, CS5, and CS5.5 are being offered a discounted introductory price of $30 per month and there’s also a free membership with only 2GB of storage space that lets you synchronize and share files across devices, and includes 30-day free trials of all the desktop applications included in the paid membership.

It's a bold move and a great one, but what about us poor AFRICANS? Once again we get left in the dark with crappy bandwidth offerings and slow internet speeds. TELKOM SAVE US!

Anyway, it's a great solution, I'm pretty sure all businesses are going to start going this route soon.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

I think I've been working in this industry for too long. When I first started reading BLOGS and doing my research on SEO and how to best optimise your site for Google (in fact my very first search terms was something on the lines of "how to get website visitors to my blogger blog) I read an article that said something on the lines of .... "you know you've been working in SEO for too long when Google updates have made a full 360 degree turn and come back to the point that you started learning about SEO..."

WELL, I'm kinda sad, but happy to say that I think I'm there.

Link Building circle of life

Always have a well balanced link strategy (according to every guy who does whitehat seo), this way you'll never have a problem

2008, Competition heats up, people start sharing links with each other (reciprocal links become the thing)

2009, reciprocal links no longer play a big role (Google update)

2009, everyone starts building links using BLOG comments, WORDPRESS and BLOGGER become the biggest sites on the web because of this

Google stops relying so heavily on these links unless they actually have a bit of weight behind them

Panic stations nobody knows where to get links, so they start paying for them. Indian companies offering free links

In fact these companies get so clever they start getting people to pay for subscriptions and you can get as many one way links as you like. FOR FREE. See Build my rank closes it's doors.

CIRCLE OF LIFE - if only we had stuck to the well balanced link building strategy, none of these would have affected us and we'd be ok.

Google over the couple of months have released more updates to their search algorithms than God has sheep and it's about time that the experts, especially in South Africa start sharing this information with those out there who are starting off with their first BLOG, website, whatever it is you're trying to do in an attempt to gain traffic for your website.

I am going to skip all the boring juicy bits about, meta data and on-page optimisation, I'll go back to that at some point but let's be honest folks.... RANKING is alot about links. The problem is if you follow the trends and reply to every link builder from New Delhi that says he can get you links for $15 a pop, you're going to end up regretting it at some point..... WELL, this is not to say that these links don't work, but there's a very methodical process to link building that you should follow.

A very famous and well known "link Jesus" actually follows a process of link building. A process that works DARN well or he wouldn't be the guest speaker at every conference on link building.

What's my current issue

I'm pissed off that's it's taken Google so long to figure out who the hell is buying shit quality links and who is not. It's pathetic and it should not be allowed. I do alot of work in the insurance industry and I can tell you now that sites like Carinsurance.co.za should not be ranking 1st for "car insurance". Cheapcarinsurance.co.za should not be ranking 5th for car insurance and so on. Google team, if you want a list let me know...

So in an attempt to share some of my knowledge and input I would like to point out what I believe is a good process or starting point for link building...

Monday, March 12, 2012

Not sure if anyone else is noticing this but the rankings in Google for some highly competitive keywords are changing on a daily basis and I'm not sure why...

I know that Google Panda and the new updates were meant to bring more relevant data to Google and users searching but I've noticed some big keywords moving from positions: 14th to 6th within 6 days of each other and then moving back again.

Other things I've noticed as well is that Google maps is popping in and out of the South African listings. There is absolutely no stability in the Google.co.za rankings nor their search results and to be honest is freaking annoying.

Friday, January 6, 2012

A question I get asked by clients on a daily basis is "How do I unlink my Google Adwords and Google Analytics Accounts". Well what's great about writing this article is that it means the client can feel safe and secure about not having to give access to his Google Adwords account and can do it himself.

Linking/Unlinking Analytics Accounts and AdWords Accounts

Before you start, make sure that you're using a Google Account email address that has access to both your Analytics and AdWords accounts, and is an Administrator for both accounts.

If you want to link multiple AdWords accounts to a single Analytics account, log in to Analytics and set the new version of Analytics as your default version:

Log in to Analytics.

Click New Version at the top right of the page.

Click Make this version default.

To link your accounts:

Sign in to your AdWords account at https://adwords.google.com.

Click the Tools and Analysis tab, then click Google Analytics.

Click the gear icon at the top right of any Analytics page.

Click the account to which you want to link the AdWords account.

Click the Data Sources tab.

Click the AdWords tab.

Click Link Accounts.

Select the Analytics profiles in which you want the AdWords data to be available.

If you want to link another AdWords account to your Analytics account, repeat the procedure above using that other AdWords account.
Your accounts should now be linked. If you opted to keep auto-tagging turned on, Analytics starts automatically tagging your AdWords links, and you can track the behavior of visitors coming from your AdWords ads.* You may see a website domain name in the menu in step 5. This is because you chose to name your account after the website URL.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Websites need to become more trustworthy and less reliant of backlinks.

Something that's always been a contentious issue. In fact I've had clients come back to me wanting to sue the living pants off me for adding outbound links to their sites.

Generally the conversation goes a little something like this:

"Why the hell are you adding a link from my restaurant to other restaurants, I'm loosing business and clients".

Think about that statement. I'm pretty sure one of the first rules in business is "Always know your competition and acknowledge that they exist". Why is this so? Well the fact of the matter is that if you acknowledge your competition, know they exist, you can make it work for both you and your competitor.

I add link to my restaurant site, referring people to you for the best Italian restaurant in New York City. You link to me from your website stating that the best Greek restaurant in Manhattan is Pappas Greek style.

Ok I know for you tecchies and SEO guys out there that constitutes a reciprocal link, but I'm just trying to get a point across as to how a outbound link from your site to a competitor can be turned into something postitive.

Along with that, it's known fact that if you have no links our from your site to other sites, you're not seen as an authority on a topic. Let me explain it this way. There's now way in hell that every little piece of information on your site is purely and 100% yours! You must have learnt about it at Varsity, or read up about it in a book and heard about it on the radio. That means that the information you're putting up was originally from another source, even if it's not entirely 100%.

So by linking out, you're telling people that you know what you're talking about you know your product what you do what service you offer etc... but at the same time you're saying, listen, you need more information on this, I haven't had the time to rewrite it, Take a look at the information here...AND ADD A LINK.

Google and search engines see this as a good thing. It means you're not only providing information on your site, but you're also giving people other resources (provided they are relevant and on topic) to read up on. This makes your site a worthwhile site to visit.